April 18: to Phortze Tenga
table of contents previous next
On April 18 at Luza, we awoke to still more fresh snow, and it was still coming down. Rats.
There had been no one up the trail from Dole yet, so after breakfast we headed out once more
into the fresh, deep snow and started tramping down a path down the hill.
The visibility was still not good, but the terrain wasn’t quite as steep as the day before.
We spent a few hours working our way down to Dole, where — joy of joys — we found
that the trail had been packed by a group coming up and we didn’t need to continue to break
trail.
However, our joy was short lived, for we found that the packed trail was now very slick, which
made the walking treacherous.
We inched our way down steep slopes through forested country — the first trees we had seen
in nearly three weeks. 
The rhododendrons were in bloom but covered with snow, their red blooms providing a bright accent
to the black and white scene.
We reached Phortze Tenga in the afternoon, and had a late lunch.
We debated about our next move.
We were still about a 4-hour walk to the next reasonable place to spend the night, so we opted
to call it quits early and stay at a lodge here.
The accommodations were a single dark bunkhouse, but we were grateful that we didn’t need
to set up the soggy tents. 
We had tea and dried out our soggy clothes around the stove in the dining area, and hoped for
better weather for the next day.